Economic Democracy: People Power and Cooperative Alternatives for a Sustainable Black Future

The reforms of second reconstruction of the 1950's and 60's, removed the blatant hard edges of national oppression against African descendants in the U.S. but they did not change the structural divisions between "citizens and subjects" and the "haves and the have-nots" at the foundation of the American project. Given the tremendous economic and social changes produced by globalization and how they impact peoples historically and systematically relegated to serving as sources of cheap labor, who knows where the ongoing rollback of the equalizing measures won by Black people will lead.

This leads to the question, what can and must people of African descent do to take possession of our own lives and control our own destinies? What are we doing to combat advancing structural exclusion from the formal economy, which is intensifying our dehumanization making large sectors of our people disposable?

In Jackson, MS we are experimenting with a municipal project of social transformation that we hope can and will be a guide to other Black communities throughout the United States.